JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Wayward Son
by CorvoKuro
Summary: The day Jaune Joseph Arc met Amber Zeppeli was the day Remnant truly became bizarre. With a long road ahead of him, Jaune must step up and become a true man as he learns that Grimm aren't the most dangerous things out there. In this world of stand users, Spin masters, deadly foes, powerful friends and bloody evolution, Remnant will welcome the newest JoJo.
1. Remnant's JoJo

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure – Wayward Son

(A glimpse of the future)

Two forces of immense power stand against each other; a battle for fate. "[Tusk]!" "[D4C]!"

Lesson learned shaped a boy into a man. "Thank you… Amber."

The man's own life was something he cared little for. "Jaune, why?" "All my life I wanted to be a hero; this was the only choice I could make that felt right."

One final question makes him pause. "Was it worth it?"

As this vision fades, we come to the present where we meet the boy who, through friendships and hardships, will become a great man.

Chapter 1: Remnant's JoJo

A cloaked woman sat upon her brown horse as it trotted along down a dirt road. The land was wide, with an open field to her right that had a long line of wooden fencing to separate it from the road and a thick forest to her left.

She wore a white blouse sans sleeves, olive green pants and brown shoes meant for combat, her only bit of jewelry were a bronze-like armbrace and pauldron. Her brown cloak covered the holsters for her weapons.

She herself was a beautiful young woman with a tan complexion, hazel eyes, short brown hair and a beauty mark under her left eye.

With full saddle bags, colored a royal purple, the woman was dead-set on reaching her destination.

Her horse jostled, getting her attention as she saw the form of a girl collapsed face-first into the ground by a wooden post of the fencing.

The woman spurred her horse, Valkyrie, zooming ahead twenty meters towards the girl. The woman then hopped off her horse and ran to aid the girl.

She stopped as soon as she heard an odd crunch beneath her boot. Moving her foot away, the woman saw that she stepped on an origami frog.

The woman shook her head as she had a moment of vertigo pass by. She looked toward the girl once again and noticed three things about her: she was about ten, her hair was a mint green with a bowl-cut shape and she must be homeless as she was clad in tattered rags that must've been a nice dress a long time ago.

She closed the distance to the girl and rolled her on her back. She checked for a pulse and breath, with both present and strong. 'How'd she get out here?' The woman thought to herself.

"Hey, wake up kid!" The woman said, shaking the girl as light as she can.

The girl stirred and opened her red eyes. With a weak voice, she asked "Who are you?"

"Amber. My name is Amber Zeppeli," The woman introduced herself, "What's yours?"

The girl didn't say a word. With those red eyes of hers, Amber had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach about the little girl. Like something was wrong. Very wrong.

Amber stood up and offered a hand to the girl, "Let's get you out of here, then we can figure out what to do next. That sounds okay to you?"

The little girl hesitated for a moment and reached out to grasp Amber's hand, but a distant noise caught both of their attentions.

The sound of a small motor came from down the road where Amber was riding from, with the little girl's voice coming from down the road singing an odd sound.

"Yeah, I'm gonna take my horse to the old town road~. I'm gonna ride 'til I can't no more~."

Amber stopped listening as soon as she saw a hint of green hair riding from far down the road on a moped.

Her gaze snapped back to the "little girl" with an intense glare.

Not even thinking about it, the "little girl's" eyes darted to look behind Amber. Realizing that the situation was a set-up, Amber darted to the right, barely dodging an arrow from the forest behind her that was aimed at her torso. The arrow imbedded itself in the wooden post, right above the "little girl's" head who then flinched from almost being shot in the face.

Amber pulled back her fist, imbuing it with the aura of the Fall Maiden, and lashed out to the "little girl's" face with a loud "ORAAAA!" The "little girl" was sent flying through the fence, landing far away in the open field, and Amber felt the sense of vertigo wash over herself again.

She now knew without a doubt that her enemy is a stand user.

Amber knew what she would be seeing from here on out was reality, and that the origami that she stepped on must have been the trigger for her enemy's stand. Knocking the girl away must have broken her concentration needed to keep the illusion up.

With a whistle, Valkyrie ran off to safety so that Amber could take on her attackers without worry.

She looked back down the road to see the person on the moped parked in the middle of the road, about thirty meters away from her, looking genuinely confused at Amber.

The form of the person was of a tall, blonde teenage boy clad in jeans, a plain white t-shirt, beat up shoes, a rather large backpack and a sheathed sword on his hip. His bright blue eyes look at her with confusion to the situation. Jaune Arc was his name, and he couldn't express just how confused he felt with just his face.

A glint of light from the forest caught Amber's attention, causing her to dodge-roll to her left as another arrow tried to pierce her. Amber quickly yelled to the boy "Get the hell out of here!"

The boy froze in his spot, with surprise plastered on his face. He looked like he's never seen a fight in real life, Amber surmised.

With a minor boom, a boy with a grey color scheme came flying at Amber in a spinning kick.

Amber quickly reached into her cloak and pulled out one of her prized weapons: a green steel ball.

Spotting references from nature, Amber tapped into her family's power of the Spin and threw the steel ball at the grey boy with a loud "ORAAA!"

The steel ball impacted the grey boy's chest, spinning and burrowing itself to the point that his trajectory was immediately redirected straight into the dirt road twenty feet in front of Amber.

Another glint of light came from the forest, only this time a woman with black hair, golden eyes and in a red dress came charging at her with two swords.

Amber imbued her second steel ball with her fall maiden aura along with the spin and spiked it to crash in front of the woman in red, causing a minor tornado of dust that sent the downed boy in grey flying towards the girl in green. Amber's first steel ball returned to her, using the energy of the Spin and momentum to fly right back to her.

Jaune wanted to run from this whole situation. He had only one goal: get to Beacon Academy to become a legendary huntsman/hero like his ancestors.

With the fight in front of him where one woman was taking on three people with nothing but steel balls, Jaune couldn't help himself but watch. This was the first real fight he's seen and it's amazing.

He put his headphones away a moment ago. His choice of music may have been odd, but he liked the track.

His attention was dead-set on Amber, until the dust tornado covered her and the woman in red. All he could do was listen as explosions and the clanging of steel originated from the obscuring tornado.

But movement caught his eye as he saw Grey and Green, as he nicknamed them, gathering themselves and shaking off the hits Amber laid upon them.

Jaune could tell that these two worked for Red and that they all wanted Amber dead.

Without a thought, Jaune unsheathed Crocea Mors with his right hand and revved his moped with left. He charged right towards them as fast as possible, ready to take them down with one slash.

Grey saw this coming and performed a helicopter kick that sent Jaune flying away. Green whipped out her weapons, dual sickles, and cleaved the moped into nothing worth more than scrap.

Jaune crashed into the dirt road with the wind knocked out of himself. He writhed for a moment on the ground before he saw Grey jumping at him one again. Jaune rolled out of the way before Grey could stomp his head into the ground.

Acting out of instinct, Jaune slashed with all of his might and cut right through the right shin of Grey, who screamed in pain as he crumpled to the ground. Jaune noticed that the leg he cleaved through was a cybernetic replacement for a real one. That immediately got rid of Jaune's guilt for supposedly crippling someone who was already missing their legs.

Jaune got up and grasped his sword with both hands. He looked ahead and charged at Green with a warrior's scream.

Green was not impressed and changed one sickle into its kusarigama form. With a flick of her wrist, a chain wrapped itself around Jaune's foot. One tug later and Jaune was back on the ground with a thud. The girl strolled up to Jaune and held both of her sickles in a reverse grip. With a smile that scared him, she said "Playing hero is for those with the skill to back it up. Try again in the next life."

Jaune felt his life flash before his eyes. There wasn't anything remarkable to note, aside from the good times with his family, and Jaune simply felt disappointed in himself. 'I didn't even get to Beacon.' He thought to himself.

As Green went to stab down at Jaune, another loud "ORA!" rang out through the clearing and a steel ball crashed right into the side of Green's face, knocking her down and out.

Giving Amber his attention again, he saw that Amber was now wielding a metal staff, using it to deflect the blows of Red's swords. The steel ball stopped spinning as Amber lost her concentration, focusing solely on the assassin.

Amber held a good defense against her opponent but failed to notice that with every attack Red was pushing her further into the woods.

With downward strike with both swords, while Amber held her staff horizontally above her to block, Red pushed Amber against a tree.

With nowhere to run, Amber could only watch in horror as Red's swords glowed with heat, slowly melting through her staff.

In an instant, Amber's staff broke and Red's attack struck her, breaking her aura.

The fall maiden found herself held by her neck against the tree by one of Red's hands. The other, which had a white glove with odd red markings, started to glow as the palm was raised towards Amber's face.

Amber couldn't breathe and she couldn't focus as she struggled in the grip of her captor. She was terrified as a bug emerged from the glove and clicked its mandibles at her. Without hesitation the bug spit out goo that latched onto Amber's face. Amber could only feel a burning pain as she felt the power of the fall maiden drain out of her and transfer to Red. She could only scream in pain, "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

Amber's scream made Jaune commit to the first idea that popped into his head: he picked up the steel ball and threw it like a baseball right at Red, impacting into the back of her skull. This caused red to lose consciousness and fall over, causing the bug's goo to rip from Amber face after only draining half of the power from Amber.

Jaune ran over to Amber's side and asked, "Are you okay?"

Amber weakly shook her head and gathered her steel balls. She then noticed Green starting to come to her senses as Grey was still writhing in pain beside her and said "We…We've gotta get out of here." Amber whistled for Valkyrie, who came charging in from her hiding place.

Jaune helped Amber up, having her use him for support as they made their way to the horse. Jaune helped Amber climb onto the horse before he turned and pulled his weapons out again.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Amber asked.

"I'll distract them, go." Jaune said, with some fake confidence in his voice.

"No way. You saved my life; I can't just leave you to die. You don't have a way out of here." Amber pointed out the destroyed moped that brought Jaune her, then adjusted herself in Valkyrie's saddle and said, "Hop on."

Jaune blushed a little and said, "A-Are you sure about that?"

Amber rolled her eyes, took a deep breath and said, "Grow a pair and hop on!"

With no room to argue, Jaune put his weapons away and did as Amber asked. With his hands around her waist, Amber cued to Valkyrie to start running just as Red and Green came to their senses and started getting to their feet.

Leaving their attackers in the dust, Amber yelled out "EAT SHIT ASSHOLES!" Amber then winced as that last taunt reminded her that her ribs were sore as hell, along with the rest of her.

After a silent half hour of Valkyrie's running, Jaune asked "Do you think we lost them?"

"I hope so…" Amber said, unsure whether she should give Valkyrie a break to catch her breath. Deciding it was for the best, she signaled the horse to slow down for the time being.

As the two humans figured that it was safe for the moment, Jaune asked "Why did those guys attack you?"

"If I told you, you'd probably think I was crazy." Amber said.

"It couldn't be crazier than those weapons of yours. How do you get them to do that?" Jaune asked.

"My steel balls? It's a family technique, we call it the Spin." Amber said.

"Can anyone learn it?" Jaune asked, this time with a hopeful curiosity.

Amber thought about for a minute before admitting "I don't know. We kept the secrets of the Spin in my family for a while."

Jaune nodded, "Okay."

As a moment of awkward silence rolled in, Amber spoke up. "Why'd you help me out? We're total strangers and you could've died today. It's… strange."

"What's so strange about doing the right thing?" Jaune asked. "My mom told me strangers are friends you haven't made yet. While I don't completely believe that, but I couldn't live with myself if I left you there. You could've died today too, you know."

The words he said made Amber chuckle. "You're right… about all of that. Maybe it was fate or something that caused us to run into each other."

"Maybe… Does this happen to you often? Getting attacked out of nowhere, I mean." Jaune asked.

"More times than you can imagine, for as many reasons as there are stars in the sky." Amber said.

"Seriously?! You must be a trouble magnet." Jaune joked. "Maybe you're cursed or something if this happens as often as you say it does."

"Hell if I know! One moment I'm on my way to Vale, next thing I know I'm about to get killed! If you didn't show up and distract them, I'd have been killed! If I ever see those guys again, I'm gonna fucking murder them back!" Amber yelled, pissed off at how close her attackers got compared to every other fight she's been in.

Jaune laughed at her antics. "I was on my way to Vale too. I'm enrolling in Beacon."

"Really now, kid? That's kinda funny, everything considered." An important thought just crossed her mind. "What's your name, kid? I never got it." Amber asked.

"Jaune Joseph Arc, ma'am!" Jaune said, playing into the kid comment Amber made.

"John Joseph? I'm guessing your nickname is JoJo with a name like that." Amber said with a laugh.

"Not really, my sister's call me Jauney. And you're saying my name wrong. It's J-a-u-n-e." Amber rolled her eyes to the spelling lesson from the boy. "What's your name, ma'am?" Jaune said, putting a little more emphasis on the ma'am.

"Amber Zeppeli, for starters. Second, don't call me ma'am. It makes me feel old!" Amber said, being playfully annoyed.

"Then don't call me kid." Jaune shot back with a grin.

"Fine then, Jauney-Boy." Amber said.

"That's as bad as kid! Just call me Jauney if you're gonna use a nickname." Jaune argued.

"Gotcha, Jauney." Amber said with a smile.

Valkyrie huffed, getting Amber's notice. It wasn't meant to alert her, so Amber caught on to the horse's message. "This beauty we're riding on is named Valkyrie. Greet yourself, Jauney."

Jaune craned his head around to see the horse's head and waved awkwardly. "Hey there, Valkyrie. I'm Jaune."

The horse gave the boy a positive sounding neigh. "I think she likes you." Amber said.

Jaune smiled as the two of them rode down the road.

(Sundown)

As night rolled in and the pair traveled as far as Amber was willing to push Valkyrie, the pair decided to set up camp by small clearing hidden by trees.

Jaune set up his own tent and sleeping bag, which he had packed in his large backpack, while Amber set up a small campfire after doing the same.

Valkyrie laid down besides Amber's tent, sleeping in peace after the long day of travel.

With some branches acquired and a small crystal of fire dust, Amber's job was complete.

She was looking at herself with a small mirror, seeing the burn-like scars that today's near-death experience brought to her now covering a large portion of her face. After all of this time by herself, Amber was rather proud that she kept her face in pristine condition for so long.

The second Amber would run into Red again, she'd gladly return the favor.

She looked to Jaune and asked "What do ya think? Horrifying, isn't it?"

Jaune took a good look at Amber's face before saying, "It's not too bad. Makes you look like a badass that's seen it all." While he truly felt that the scars were a little off-putting, Jaune knew the last thing she needed was that thought.

While she didn't show it, the boy's words settled some of the thoughts in Amber's mind about her new "look".

The two humans sat on opposite sides of the fire. Jaune watched the fire like it was a TV while Amber started polishing her steel balls with a rag.

Jaune noticed the care she put into making the weapons shine and asked, "So how does that Spin thing work?"

Amber halted the polishing and thought about it for a second, trying to figure out how to put it into words. "Well, it's basically the manipulation of rotational energy. We visualize those revolutions and make our object of choice spin too. My family channels the Spin into these steel balls, for self-defense and more."

"... That made no sense at all." Jaune deadpanned.

Amber felt a little insulted at the jab to her attempt at teaching. She felt a lightbulb go off in her head and gripped both of her steel balls, tossing one to Jaune above the flames.

Jaune clumsily caught it from his seat. Before he could ask, Amber said in a calm voice "Watch what I do."

Amber simply spun the steel ball in her palm with a flick of the wrist. Jaune watched in fascination as it slowly picked up more and more speed until it was rotating as fast as a tire on the highway.

"Try it." Amber said.

Jaune looked at the steel ball in his hand and flicked his wrist like Amber did. It lazily spun in his hand, losing speed after a few seconds.

"Look at how mine spins." Amber commanded, Jaune doing as she asked. He witnessed the spinning of Amber's steel ball once more: fast, humming with energy and consistent.

He wanted his steel ball to copy Amber's perfectly. Maybe another flick would give to give it more energy to at least get close.

"Don't force it. Let it spin naturally, while visualizing what you want it to do. It'll get there, eventually." Amber instructed.

Jaune focused, he wanted the steel ball to spin badly. But it wouldn't respond as it slowed down and eventually stopped altogether.

The boy spun the ball in his hand again, but it eventually stopped once again.

Jaune grunted in frustration, but Amber calmed him down by saying, "Relax. No one masters anything in a day. We can try again later."

Jaune conceded and the young man tossed the steel ball back to Amber, who caught it effortlessly.

"I think you have some real potential Jauney, even though you reminded me of a flailing fish in your scuffle." Amber said. "And it's a long way to Vale and Beacon. I think I could teach you a lot about how to fight on our travels. Your choice."

"Are you serious?!" Jaune asked. "You want to be my teacher?"

"Yup. What do you say? Want to fight like a Zeppeli?" Amber asked.

"Yes." Jaune said with no hesitation.

"Good. It'd be a waste to not teach a guy like you." Amber said, more internally glad than she was letting show. "My uncle Led told me once that there's n better satisfaction than helping another person grow into a better version of themselves."

As the fire started dying down and the night dragged on, the question that's been foremost in Jaune's mind was came out.

"Why'd you let me come with you in the first place?" Jaune asked as he got up.

"I owe you and I want to return the favor by helping you... plus it gets lonely on the road." Amber admitted.

"Thank you." Jaune said.

"You're welcome. You academic hopefuls are a brave bunch, I'll admit. Your aura won't be able to protect you as much as you'd believe. It was kinda funny when that Grey guy laid you out in one kick." Amber joked.

"What's aura?" Jaune asked.

Amber gave him a dead-eyed look that terrified the boy. Her sole thought was 'Good lord above, help me teach this boy how to fight and then some.'

"Get your sorry ass over here, Jauney."

"…Be gentle."

_To be continued._


	2. Stand Proud

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure – Wayward Son

Chapter 2: Stand Proud

Jaune couldn't fall asleep. His body was buzzing with energy and his mind was racing. Amber unlocked his aura a couple hours ago before she went to sleep in her tent.

The boy was laying on top of his sleeping bag, still dressed in his clothes from earlier, admiring the white glow of his hand as he manifested his aura.

His newfound "force field" was blowing his mind. Who needed armor when you had this stuff?

But he remembered what Amber told him. "It's like a battery. Use up all of the power and you'll be defenseless. There're countless stories of huntsmen who overestimated their aura reserves and ended up as kibble for whatever Beowolf they were fighting. Don't test your luck, Jauney."

But all he wanted to do was just test said luck. He felt like he could take on a whole army, but he knew better than that.

If he could just try and kill just one small Grimm, he could fall asleep with no issues.

He got up, attached Crocea Mors to his waist and snuck out of his tent. He took care not to wake up Amber as he walked away from the campsite.

After he got a fair distance away, he ran through the crash course in aura Amber gave him and focused it as an armor. Jaune could immediately feel like that he could get hit by a train and walk away with no issues.

The boy drew his sword and expanded his shield as he marched on through the dark forest.

One quiet half hour later and he suppressed the thought that this was a bad idea. "It's just a test of what I can do. The fact I've never been in a real fight doesn't matter. I'll be fine." Jaune said to himself with a semblance of confidence.

Rustling bushes caught Jaune's attention and he whipped around, ready to face whatever Grimm horror would face him.

He raised his shield in front of him, just under his eyes (which were full of fear), as his heart began racing.

As the creature jumped out of the bushes, Jaune screamed like a girl and sliced towards it, missing it completely as the creature was nothing more than "A bunny?!"

The little bunny stared at him with abject confusion before hopping away.

"Well... I'm a big weenie." Jaune said to himself as he let his guard down and turned around to meet a wall of black fur and bleached bone.

He looked up into the eyes of the eight-foot tall Beowolf as it was drooling at Jaune hungrily.

Jaune raised his shield and swung his sword in a wide arc, but the Grimm was faster. With one swipe to his chest, Jaune was sent flying into an open field with the wind knocked right out of him.

The boy realized that even though he wasn't directly hit, his aura was drained more than he expected from the impact. The only thing that took damage was his white t-shirt, which now sported four large slashes.

Jaune caught his breath and got up, watching as the Beowolf was fifteen meters away. Jaune was confused as the Grimm was just standing there, swaying with the wind.

His fear grew, was this monster playing around with him for its own sick amusement?

Jaune remembered what his dad told him about the Grimm. 'They feed off of negative emotions. Especially rage and fear. The more negative the emotion, the more they are attracted to it. Sometimes they play with their soon-to-be victims in order to 'season' the meat. If you ever run into a Grimm, don't give into fear, Jaune. That's how they win.'

"You have to be brave, Jauney." He told himself. He took a deep breath and stared down the monster in front of him.

It could sense the change in the boy, growling as it hunched over to get on all fours. All the while its eyes never wavered from Jaune's.

Jaune raised his shield and loosened his vice-grip on his sword, with another breath he calmed himself down and focused right on the Beowolf. While he had no training, he did have advice from his dad. Keep yourself loose and don't tense up, as he'd suggest.

With a silent signal, the Beowolf pounced towards Jaune in one bound. Jaune jumped to the side and let the Grimm crash face-first into the ground. With a quick slice, the Beowolf lost its left arm from the elbow. The beast jumped back, howling in pain. Not letting it have a chance to recover, Jaune charged at the beast.

It saw him coming and swiped with its remaining arm, sending Jaune flying as it hit his shield. The boy crash onto his back, kicking up dust as a result of the impact.

Jaune groaned, dazed, but rolled onto his front so he could push himself up within seconds.

The Beowulf charged with a downward slash with enough force to tear his shield arm off, if it even connected as Jaune lurched backwards in order to dodge.

Time slowed down for Jaune as he saw his opening as the Beowulf's attack would mean no chance for defense if Jaune acted upon this opportunity immediately. The only thing stopping Jaune was nothing as his will to live overtook control of his actions.

And with a decapitating slice to the neck, Jaune Joseph Arc killed his first creature of Grimm.

Jaune stood proud for his achievement as the Beowolf disintegrated. He now believed that he could stand a chance at Beacon, instead of just hoping he could ride the waves through training. With this baseline, Jaune felt that he could really grow and become stronger as a huntsman.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard a thumping sound from far behind him. Whipping around with his shield raised, Jaune was tackled to the ground by another Beowolf.

It was on top of him, but Jaune was able to push it back enough to keep it from biting into his face with his shield. Its paws were trying to push down on Jaune's shield, but the boy's aura-infused strength kept it at bay. If Jaune's mind wasn't focused on surviving the Grimm attack at this moment, he would be thinking up countless praises to the lord above that the Grimm weren't as smart as people.

Jaune shifted his sword's grip and stabbed into the side of the beast, but it only dug into its leg and nothing vital. But it was enough to make the beast howl in pain and jump away from Jaune.

Jaune quickly got to his feet and noticed the Beowolf was taking a more defensive stance as it couldn't run away. It was leading with its good leg, arms tensed with hands ready to claw, hunched over a bit and its jaw shut.

Taking the opportunity given to him, Jaune charged with his shield. The Beowolf went to bat Jaune away, but Jaune ducked under the attack, used his shield to push its arm upwards to redirect the attack away from him and stabbed the Beowulf in the stomach. Keeping up his momentum, Jaune pushed the Grimm beyond the stab and tackled the Grimm to the ground, burying the sword into the ground through the Grimm up to the sword's hilt.

With a pained howl the Beowulf's body began to disintegrate, signaling its death.

Jaune left Crocea Mors stabbed into the ground as he rolled onto his back to lay on the ground in order to catch his breath.

That was two Grimm! He killed two Grimm! Jaune's pride swelled up inside of him as he smiled contently.

But he figured that he was at his limit, anymore and he'd surely get killed. If he had to guess, he only had maybe five percent of his aura left.

Jaune lifted himself off and noticed that dirt was stuck to his sweaty body. He dusted it off of himself but realized that he wasn't really in an open field.

Jaune Arc was in a small desert-scape. He looked around and saw that the area wasn't that large, maybe about the size of city block, when compared to regular deserts.

It must've slipped past his mind while he was fighting to not get mauled, but it was bizarre that the boy didn't even notice that he was in a small desert.

Jaune pulled himself off and felt a wave soreness wash over him. His adrenaline kept the pain at bay, but now it was gone, leaving him worn out.

He ignored what his body was saying and just focused on getting back to Amber's campsite and falling asleep.

As he re-entered the forest scape, the sudden appearance of the desert crossed his mind. Jaune turned around to take another look at the oddity when, to his shock, it was gone and in its place was regular forest.

"Did I hallucinate that?" He asked himself.

He shook off any more thoughts on the matter as the need for sleep overtook every other thought he had.

One half-hour later and Jaune found the small campsite, entered his tent, crawled into his sleeping bag and slept what was left of the night away.

(Five hours later)

At the crack of dawn, Jaune's tent was opened and Amber called out "Rise and shine, Jauney-Boy!"

The boy was still asleep, zipped up in his sleeping bag like it was a cocoon. Amber rolled her eyes. It was a long day yesterday, might as well give him a little more time to sleep in.

She stepped out and took in the beauty of the early morning sky. Amber then took one her steel balls into her hand and imbued it with the spin.

"[Scan]." She said before she threw her steel ball high into the air. Her stand activated and through her right eye, which shifted her iris into a beige color with the word 'TURBO' inscribed in it, she saw a bird's-eye view of the landscape as an eye appeared in her steel ball. She activated the x-ray vision of [Scan], seeing through the various trees that the two of them were alone for at least a mile or two.

She dismissed her stand as it fell back into her hand.

'Valkyrie did help to put a great amount of distance between us and those guys.' Amber thought as she walked over to the horse, who was starting to wake up.

"Hey girl, you slept well?" Amber asked as she petted Valkyrie.

The horse neighed to her rider, seemingly to voice "Yeah." to the young woman. Giving Valkyrie her breakfast of carrots, Amber then began to pack up her sleeping bag and tent, humming a little tune to herself to pass the time.

She heard shuffling from behind her, turning around to see Jaune doing the same.

"Enjoy your nap?" Amber asked.

The lack of a response made Amber uncomfortable. She walked over to Jaune and tapped his shoulder, but he didn't respond.

She turned the boy around and saw that his eyes had dark rings around them. He was dead tired, being barely awake.

Amber then noticed the large slashes in his shirt and immediately put the puzzle pieces together.

"You went out looking for a fight last night." She voiced her realization.

Jaune went back to packing his gear and tent into his large backpack. After he finished, he sat by the campfire and just stared emptily at the embers of the previous night's fire. He began to doze off again, struggling to remain as conscious as he is.

Amber finished packing her gear as Valkyrie stood up, ready to ride for the day.

She nudged Jaune to the horse, helping the zombie-like boy up before mounting the saddle herself.

Amber then spurred the horse to the road as the small group were off on their way once again.

Jaune wrapped his arms around Amber's waist, having a dead-man's grip on the girl as he fell back asleep on the saddle.

This only served to make the young woman worry; she's seen horrible cases of aura depletion before, but not with someone whose aura was unlocked for less than a day.

She spurred Valkyrie to hurry along as she hoped to find a small town or something, far away from Grimm, to help Jaune recover.

(Hours Later)

Jaune felt oddly comfortable, considering he's in a sleeping bag in the woods. What felt especially odd was that it felt like he was laying on a mattress.

He was still dead tired; the previous night's excursion still made his bones ache. While he felt the bruises on his back were now gone, Jaune felt like he couldn't get up for anything.

All he wanted to do was sleep his troubles away. But his stomach growled, making Jaune realize that he was starving.

He forced himself to sit up, taking a moment to open his eyes to adjust to the light.

It then hit Jaune like a train that he was in a bed in some random room. Panic settled in his mind as he looked around for his sword and shield, only to see them missing. In this small room with a window that had the late afternoon sun shining through it, he could see his backpack on a chair in the corner of the room. To his left was a nightstand that had a lamp that was turned off, with his scroll laid beside it.

Jaune grabbed it and saw that he had a new text from an unknown number. "Jaune, it's Amber." He read aloud, solving his first question. "Give me a call ASAP the moment you get up, or else."

After living with his many sisters for most of his life, he knew that ignoring her message would be a death sentence. He added Amber's number to his contacts and called her.

The dial tone rang once, before the line was picked up. "Hey-" Jaune got out before Amber immediately hung up.

A moment later, the door to Jaune's room was kicked in and a rather angry Amber was staring him down. The mystery of his missing weapon was solved as it was attached to Amber's waist.

While the Beowolves were scary, Amber was downright terrifying.

Before Jaune could apologize out of reflex, Amber yelled at him "What the hell were you thinking?!"

Jaune's voice died in his throat, he couldn't voice his thoughts to the young woman.

"Are you trying to die painfully?! I specifically told you stories about guys getting mauled to scare you from trying it, not doing it yourself!" Amber yelled.

Jaune noticed her eyes were bloodshot and her stance shaky. They've only known each other for a day, but their shared brush with death made Jaune understand her well enough to know that she was stressing over him for a while at this point.

His sense of guilt overwhelmed him as Jaune knew if he died last night, Amber would've lost her only human friend in the world.

"Well," Amber said, snapping Jaune out of his thoughts, "What the hell do you have to say for yourself?"

Jaune made a move to get up, but Amber tossed a spinning steel ball that impacted his chest. It tightened into his flesh, making Jaune collapse onto the bed.

He felt paralyzed from head to toe, a sensation that felt like he could simply describe like he died but his ghost still could see out of his own eyes.

He could talk, but the words kept dying in his throat as he didn't know how to explain himself to the young woman.

"If you're going to get yourself killed, do it where your loved ones can find you." Amber said, her voice cold as ice.

Amber didn't mean what she said, but she couldn't help but to beat the message into the boy's mind that what he did was dumb.

But this message did finally help Jaune figure out what he wanted to say.

"I can't go home… I left without saying any goodbyes." Jaune admitted.

Amber took in his words before their true meaning hit her and she realized "You ran away from home to go to Beacon." She then plucked the steel ball from Jaune's chest and the boy had control of his body once again.

Jaune nodded his head as he moved to sit on the edge of the bed, his feet dangling as he hunched over to wallow in his guilt. "I thought I could be a hero, like in the stories my father told me about my ancestors. They're legendary... I'm ordinary." Jaune took another deep breath before admitting, "So I left home with the family weapon, Crocea Mors. I blocked their numbers my scroll, I can't go home and look any of them in the face until I prove I did the right thing."

Amber sat next to him. "You ran away from home with a sword and shield, with no guns at all, using a fucking moped to get to Beacon, jumped into a fight against professionals while having no training in the slightest, then fighting Grimm on your own… are you suicidal, Jaune?" She honestly asked.

"No." He said without a thought. "I like living… but all my life I wanted to be a hero like my ancestors."

"Playing hero gets people killed." Amber said, with a tone that Jaune figured meant that she knew this from first-hand experience.

Jaune could hear Green's words from yesterday echoing in his mind, _"Playing hero is for those with the skill to back it up. Try again in the next life."_

"You shouldn't throw your life away to become a huntsman." Amber said.

"… I know." Jaune admitted.

"And yet you still went out last night to fight Grimm. Just tell me why you did that?" Amber asked.

"I felt power for the first time in my life when you unlocked my aura, Amber. I felt unstoppable… I felt like I had something going for me for once." Jaune said.

Amber stayed quiet.

"I wanted to prove to myself that I'm not useless. Even yesterday, I had my ass handed to me. I just got lucky when I sliced Grey's fake leg off." Jaune said.

Amber put a hand on his shoulder, "You're not useless. You're more of a… a work-in-progress."

Jaune's mood got even darker, Amber noted. While she was still mad at him, seeing him like this put a pit in Amber's stomach.

"Jaune, I would have probably died yesterday if you didn't show up. I'm grateful to you." Amber said, softer than she realized.

Her words got through to Jaune, who said "I'm sorry I made you worry."

Amber sighed tiredly. "Just… don't do that again. We're in this together, partners on the road. I'd feel much more comfy with you fighting Grimm if I have your back, okay?"

Jaune smiled, "Okay."

Amber chuckled and punched him in the arm.

Jaune laughed and got up out of bed. He felt a breeze through his shirt, looking down to see the large slashes from last night's fight.

"Got any spare shirts?" Amber asked.

"A few." Jaune said as he walked over to his backpack, dug through it for a spare shirt and quickly changed into a brand-new white t-shirt and throwing on his Pumpkin Pete hoodie.

Amber took a good look at the bunny logo, before she stifled a laugh. "It-uh… I love the hoodie."

"Thanks. You have no idea how many box-tops I had to mail to get this." Jaune said with some pride.

Amber laughed. "Maybe the Grimm will get scared off by that cute, little bunny-rabbit."

Jaune rolled his eyes. "Well it's not like I have any armor."

That statement made a lightbulb go off in Amber's head. "Then let's get you some. There's a blacksmith shop nearby. I checked it out and he has some good armor in stock."

"Really? Let's go check it out." Jaune said, before his stomach grumbled again, "How about after lunch? I'm starving."

"Follow me, bunny-boy." Amber joked as she stepped out of the room.

Jaune grumbled a complaint before following her out.

(Sunset)

After a few hours with the blacksmith adjusting a white chest-piece and pauldron set made with his measurements, along with purchasing a set of brown finger-less gloves, Jaune felt pride looking at himself in the bathroom mirror of his current lodging.

He looked more like a real huntsman and had something to protect his prized hoodie.

Amber had left him with the blacksmith to get some supplies earlier, so she hasn't seen his new look.

Jaune began flexing in the mirror before a knock at his door surprised him. "Jauney, I'm back~" He heard Amber say in a sing-song voice.

"It's unlocked." Jaune called out as he stepped out of the bathroom.

As Amber walked through the door with a bag in hand, Jaune took a step back in surprise. "Sorry about the hold-up. Had to feed Valkyrie and dropped the supplies off in my room."

Amber was now clad in a new wardrobe: gone was her white blouse, olive green pants and her brown cloak. What she now wore was a royal purple blouse under a beige vest, a beige half-cape, beige pants designed for horseback riding, a leather belt with silver spiral belt-buckle, royal purple boots, deep purple fingerless gloves that covered the length of her forearm, a beige face-mask that hung loose around her neck with a set of tinted goggles and a wide-brimmed beige hat that has slits to let some light through.

The only things she kept from her old outfit was the bronze bracer on her left forearm and the bronze pauldron on her right shoulder.

Amber caught Jaune staring and grinned. "Whaddya think?"

Jaune gave her a thumbs up since he couldn't find the right words to express his thoughts.

"Good answer, here's your prize." Amber reached into her bag and tossed Jaune something small, which he caught. He saw that it was a white beanie, with a large gold star design that'd cover his entire forehead.

Jaune slipped it on, looking in the mirror liking the addition to his wardrobe.

"I figured if you're changing your look for some practicality sake, so should I. It'll throw off the guys from yesterday off our trail a little bit. And I figured the beanie would hold your shaggy hair down when Valkyrie goes fast." Amber explained.

Jaune nodded. "So, what's next?"

Amber sat on the bed and said "Vale and Beacon are a while away. With how far out in the sticks as we are, the reception's shit and I can't get a call out to Beacon. We're on our own until we get to Vale. With stops for supplies and rest, I'm gonna guess we should arrive in about a week." Amber stopped for a moment and sighed, "But that's just our best-case scenario. Realistically, with my luck, it'll take maybe double due to several things; accidents, bad weather, bandits, Grimm… and some other things."

"Like?" Jaune asked.

"Like the guys who came after me. The girls were especially dangerous. Red was strong, and she drained me of half of my strength…" Amber sat down, grateful she didn't have a mirror to show her the scars left behind by Red.

"Is that why they were after you? Because you have some special power?" Jaune asked, sitting behind Amber on the bed.

Amber knew she'd have to explain her powers to Jaune sooner or later, guess now was the time.

"What do you know about the story of the four maidens?" Amber asked.

"It's been a while; I know I was told about it when I was a kid as a bedtime story." Jaune said.

"Well… it's real- they are real." Amber stated.

Amber recanted the tale of the four maidens to Jaune; how they were helped an old wizard and were given special powers as a show of thanks. Amber mentioned that she is the Fall Maiden, gifted with a power beyond what most have. She then explained how said power put a target on her back, as her death would give the power to the last woman they thought of.

Her mother was the previous maiden, Amber got her power at a young age after a huntress mission gone wrong. She learned to control the power on her own as her father and grandfather taught her The Spin, to give her more of an edge to protect herself. When she became sixteen, she left home to journey the world and to protect the last of her family from being associated with her.

Amber closed off with how she knew that Red drained her of half of the Fall Maiden's power with that weird glove, and that Jaune was the only reason that she didn't take all of it.

Jaune was amazed, believing everything Amber told him as she didn't seem anything else but stone-cold serious. And the demonstration of controlling wind in the room with her eyes glowing killed any doubts he had. "Wow." He replied.

Amber smiled, "Wow indeed."

"… And what's so special about Green? You mentioned that she was also especially dangerous." Jaune asked.

"That one is harder to explain, I'm not even sure where to start." Amber said as she grabbed one of her steel balls and passed it to Jaune. "[Scan]."

Jaune raised an eyebrow, but then screamed in fear as he looked down to see an eyeball in Amber's steel ball. He immediately dropped it and turned to Amber. "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!"

Amber was confused for a moment, before realizing "You can see my stand." She muttered, but Jaune could hear her. "But that's impossible. Stands can only be seen by other stand users."

"A what?" Jaune asked.

"A stand is a special power, a manifestation of one's fighting spirt. Getting one is dangerous; as people who try to get one, but don't have the potential, die as a result." Amber said. "What did you do last night?"

"I fought off two Beowolves, almost getting my face bitten by one and disemboweled by the other." Jaune said.

Amber pushed her next question upon him, "Was there anything weird about the situation? Did you get struck by a strange arrow or something?"

"No." Jaune said, before it dawned on him. "Well, the place I fought them was weird. It was a small desert, I was covered in sand because of the fight. But it disappeared after I left."

Amber had a look of surprise on her face, "If that was the cause… then you were a victim of the Devil's Palm." Before Jaune could ask, Amber continued, "It's a legend, described like a roaming curse. People wander into a desert that pops up out of nowhere. Usually something happens in there that is fatal. But those who survive and escape come out with a stand, so says the legends."

"Wow… how'd you get yours?" Jaune asked.

"Got hit by a weird arrow, almost died." Amber said plainly.

Jaune simply replied with "Huh…"

"Stands have special powers, usually related to the user's personality or situation. I wonder what yours can do?" Amber sat on the thought for a minute before a lightbulb went off in her head. She tossed a steel ball to Jaune and said, "Try Spinning it now."

"…Seriously?" Jaune said, unsure of himself.

Amber pulled out her other steel ball and got it rotating with the Spin effortlessly.

"Like I said yesterday, don't force it. Let it spin naturally. It'll get there, eventually. It just depends on you." Amber instructed.

Jaune relented and watched Amber's steel ball. Looking back to his, he visualized how Amber's steel ball spun. He looked at the ball given to him for a moment, before spinning it his hand. Not like Amber, more like anyone else.

He closed his eyes and focused on the ball in his hand. As he could feel it slow down, Jaune only focused on the fact it was spinning. He reached deep within himself, searching for his fighting spirit. He could feel it, so Jaune pushed through the fog in his mind for it.

Amber stopped Spinning her steel ball and looked in amazement as Jaune was covered in a pink-ish energy. It wasn't aura, Amber knew he is calling upon his stand.

The only thought Jaune had on his mind was 'Spin'. The pink-ish energy died down as Jaune felt the energy within him flow into the steel ball.

His lazily spinning steel ball, which started wobbling a few seconds ago, steadied itself. Jaune could feel the steel ball start to pick up speed, spinning faster and faster as the seconds passed by.

Jaune opened his eyes as the steel ball was Spinning like Amber's.

"I-I'm doing it!" Jaune exclaimed.

The look on Jaune's face made Amber feel prideful in him. "You sure are." She then holstered her second steel ball.

"I think that's enough for tonight. Considering you couldn't do it yesterday goes to show how much potential you got," Amber said

Jaune willed his steel ball to stop, stopping its Spin over a few seconds.

He tossed the steel back to her, though her could still feel the buzz of energy that the Spin gave him.

As the two processed the change in Jaune, they started to hear a low humming.

Jaune and Amber looked around themselves to figure out where the sound was coming from, until Amber looked at Jaune.

"Look at your hands." Amber said in disbelief.

Jaune found the request odd but found himself breathless when he did as she asked.

His hands themselves were normal, but his fingernails were floating off of his fingers and spinning extremely fast.

"HOLY SHIT!" Jaune screamed, before he started shaking his hands like a spider was on them.

"I'm willing to bet that's your stand's real power. To use the Spin on your nails." Amber concluded. "Not the weirdest stand I've seen. I once knew a guy who's stand just gave him motivational speeches."

Jaune stopped shaking his hands and reeled his thoughts back into place, focusing on stopping the Spin.

When his nails settled back into place as they should be, Jaune shook his head in disbelief.

"All-in-all: you're a powerful half-maiden who can spin a steel ball to do miraculous things and also see/attack stands with said steel balls after they grow an eye that you can see out of. And now I have my own stand and can use the Spin to make my nails float… Good lord, what kind of bizarre adventure did I sign up for?" Jaune remarked.

"Guess we'll find out soon enough." Amber said with a smile.

_To be continued._

Author's Note: I know this chapter is heavy with exposition and explanations, but this is a necessary evil so I can jump into the action. Next up for Jaune and Amber will be their first stand battle together, along with Jaune developing his stand further. You can probably guess what I gave him.

I decided to give Amber [Scan] as her stand based off of Meti's YouTube video which detailed why [Ballbreaker] is the stand of the Spin, and not Gyro's. The fact there's so little of Amber known in canon opens up her history for any interpretation, which was fun. We'll have full flashbacks with her later.

If you guys have any ideas for stand battles, PM them to me. I have many planned and I already have most of the main characters assigned their own stands from the series, while certain characters while be without stands.


	3. Tusk Part 1

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure – Wayward Son

Chapter 3: Tusk Part 1

(Evernight Castle)

Cinder Fall was not one to feel fear for much of anything. The prospect of burning down the world excited her. She would set entire cities on fire with a grin on her face, a dream she would make real in the coming months. Hell, most Grimm feared her because of her power and position in the hierarchy.

But her position was second to the true leader of the cabal that plotted to remake the world.

The very same leader she and her two allies were going to meet after they returned to their stolen Bullhead to arrive at the Land of Darkness. The long halls of the castle's only source of light were from the windows that showed the hellscape outside.

Cinder and her allies set out to steal the power of the fall maiden for her to use in order to strengthen the cabal.

The three returned with the job half-successful. Or in other words, an unacceptable failure.

Mercury Black limped beside her left. The entire trip back gave him no chance to repair his right prosthetic leg, which got sliced off at the shin. He had to make the entire trip back with the two parts reattached with an impromptu welding job from Cinder. He was seething as he tried to remember what happened in the failed ambush. All he could remember was failing to knock the fall maiden down with a spinning kick and that his leg was sliced off. A nasty bump to the head made everything else a blur.

He was the son of one of Remnant's most dangerous assassins, Marcus Black, raised to carry on his work. But Mercury only had one kill under his belt, his own father out of self-defense. This was his chance to truly become an assassin and he blew it.

On Cinder's right was a downtrodden Emerald Sustrai. The thief-turned-anarchist blamed herself for their failure. She failed to trick the fall maiden with her stand, giving away their chance to successfully ambush the young woman. Their plan should've worked, but the bump to her head took away her memory as to how they exactly screwed-up. She was the only stand-user in the group, being born with one long before she was found in the streets, supposedly putting her on the same level as the stand-less Cinder.

While Cinder knew of stands, the idea was still a foreign concept to her.

Cinder herself was the only one who came out of the ambush with anything good as she could feel half of the fall maiden's aura flowing through her, giving Cinder an intoxicating rush when she called upon said power. The idea that this was just half of what was destined for her simply amazed her. But like the others, a bump to the head was what she found in place of the event's memories.

The three still failed to completely drain the fall maiden. Now, they had to defend themselves and answer for their failure.

"W-Will she kill us?" Emerald asked the one person she respected.

"No. She doesn't have that many allies and she can still get some use out of us." Mercury said.

Emerald glared. "I wasn't taking to you, Stumpy."

Mercury gritted his teeth. "The fuck you call me? You're the one who fucked all of this up for us!"

"That's why you were there, to back me up!" Emerald argued.

"Yeah, because you can barely pull your own fucking weight." Mercury taunted.

Emerald reached for her gun as Mercury clenched his fists, but Cinder decided now was the time to intervene. "Both of you stand down."

The two immediately snapped to attention to the woman with golden eyes. "It could've been worse, it should've been better. We'll have our chance to make up for it, I'm sure of it."

The group came upon a large set of doors, a silence falling upon them as anything could happen once they stepped through.

Cinder opened the door to the meeting room, where a long table with six seats claimed the middle of the room and a throne made of dark crystals sat beyond the table.

Three of the seats were filled with men Cinder despised on one half of the table.

Tyrian Callows, an insane scorpion Faunus sat with his legs pulled in the seat near the throne. His eyes and laughter both made Cinder uncomfortable and ready to slice the man's throat at the drop of a hat. Especially when he starts giggling like a mental patient, like at the current moment as he grinned at Cinder.

Hazel Rainart sat in the middle, his eyes closed and arms crossed. He was a patient man, but Cinder couldn't trust him. His anger would get the better of him, turning him into a wild animal if even a certain name that is rhymes with Kingpin was casually mentioned.

Arthur Watts sat furthest from the throne with a smug look on his face that Cinder wanted to melt from his skull. The man was a genius, but he was also a schemer. Deep down, Cinder had a feeling that Watts would murder her if given a good chance. Especially if he could claim it was an "accident". Not even their leader truly trusted him.

Cinder, Mercury and Emerald said nothing as they approached their seats; with Cinder close to the throne, Emerald beside her and Mercury on the far end.

"That won't be necessary." A voice said from behind the throne.

As if she popped out of nowhere like a demon, the leader of this group strolled out from behind the throne and took a seat on it. Her ghostly white skin, black and red eyes and visible black veins made what would be a beautiful woman look more like a monster.

Salem, queen of the Grimm, had a look of disappointment on her face. A look Cinder never wanted to be the recipient of.

The three approached the throne and kneeled in respect to the woman.

"You've failed, haven't you?" Salem said, even though she knew the answer by the looks on their faces.

Cinder let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding. "Yes."

Tyrian began laughing like he just heard a funny joke. "What a shocker."

Salem shot a glare at Tyrian, who along with the other two men, figured she would not want their input on the matter.

"We did ambush the fall maiden," Cinder said, "but she managed to defend herself. Though, I was able to drain her of half her aura with the glove you gave me."

Salem growled. "Pray tell me how three trained individuals couldn't handle one lone woman?"

"She was stronger than we realized! She took us all down with blows to the head that took away our memories of the fight!" Cinder said without thinking. She cursed herself out internally.

"Is that an excuse or a fact?" Salem said, with a tone that promised pain.

"… I think she was a stand user." Cinder revealed.

Emerald jumped into the conversation. "She somehow figured out the effect of my [Paper Moon King] and took me down before we could even attack her."

Salem sat quietly for a moment, the room growing deathly quiet. Not even Tyrian made a sound as the queen deliberated.

She then sighed. "… Of course she'd be a stand user. I should've known better than to send you three. Even with Emerald's stand, you weren't prepared to fight a stand user."

Salem stood up. "I believe I have just the thing to fix that. And it'll also be a test for you, Cinder. It'll prove if you have the strong-will needed for our goals to succeed. But first, give Emerald the glove I gave you." Cinder immediately complied and Emerald slid it onto her hand.

The three men immediately knew what Salem intended, and all watched in anticipation.

Salem reached into her long flowing sleeve and pulled out an ornate arrow.

Cinder immediately knew what it was and felt her heart drop. The stand arrow terrified her when Salem showed it to her long ago. An item that would either make her stronger or kill her on the spot. Salem offered it to Cinder previously, but the fear of dying was enough to make Cinder decline.

She immediately realized Salem's test: prove she was worthy of the arrow's gift of power. If she died in the process, the power of the fall maiden could possibly be transferred to Emerald via the glove.

"This arrow will redeem you, my dear Cinder… if you are the kind of warrior I need you to be." Salem said as she gave it Cinder.

Salem could've stabbed Cinder with it and it'd still activate, but Salem wanted Cinder to do it herself. This was her only chance left.

Cinder stared at the arrow with a tight grip. She took a deep breath. "Anything for you, my queen. My life is yours."

Cinder didn't hesitate to stab herself with the stand arrow, right through her own heart.

Mercury looked away and Emerald gasped at the sudden action.

Tyrian had a grin that threatened to split his face in face, Watts found the pain Cinder was in to be amusing while Hazel found the act disgusting.

Salem watched with subtle anticipation as Cinder fell to her knees.

Cinder could feel her own life slipping away from her as her vision began to darken and her head lowered. The only sound she could make were from gasps which progressively got quieter.

"Drain her." Salem commanded Emerald, having no faith Cinder would survive.

Emerald buried her emotions of despair for Cinder and held out the gloved hand to Cinder, just like Cinder did to the fall maiden.

Before Emerald activated the glove, Cinder's hand grabbed the extended arm. Her head snapped up with a pained look on her face.

Using Emerald as a support, Cinder shakily stood up and ripped the arrow out of her own chest. A purple aura then exploded out of her as Cinder felt a new rush of power. It was just as intoxicating as the fall maiden's aura, in Cinder's opinion. The pain passed and Cinder felt like she was fully rested and energized.

Salem smiled with pride. "You've passed and have become stronger for it, Cinder. Use this new power and this new chance at life to prove that you are worthy of being my right hand."

Cinder nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Tyrian," Salem said. The man responded with an expectant yes. "Take Cinder down to the training room. I want her to discover her stand as soon as possible, she'll need to figure out its strengths and weaknesses before we send her out again." Tyrian nodded like a hyperactive dog.

She then looked to Watts. "Arthur, in light of recent events, I'd like for you to test the hypothesis you made of your own stand on Mercury here after you repair his leg in your lab." Watts smiled like a mad scientist and thanked his queen.

"Hazel, you're in charge of Emerald's training. We don't want her to be ill-prepared again when faced with battle. I'd like for you to get started immediately." Hazel nodded without a word.

Salem looked at Cinder's group. "When you three are ready, I want you three to go to Vale and set up a base there and connect with Roman Torchwick. He is already gathering dust and other resources for us to get ready to assault the city and Beacon."

Cinder and Emerald nodded.

Mercury stood up. "This was fun and all," he said sarcastically as he was not excited for being Watt's guinea pig, "But what about the fall maiden?"

Salem waved his concerns away. "I already alerted many of our field teams in the field to be on the lookout for her. She's weakened already and is on her way to Vale. When she dies, her aura will rejoin with Cinder instead of trying to find a new host. Once that happens, Beacon is as good as rubble."

"What if they fail?" Emerald asked.

"Then you three will have to face her again. Failure will be unacceptable. Cinder must become the fall maiden." Salem stated.

The three accepted what she said.

Salem smiled. "Good. You all have your assignments; you are all dismissed."

As the groups separated to head to their assignments, Cinder smiled like a maniac as she called upon her new stand and saw a gloved hand appear beside her own.

(The road to Vale)

It's been a few days since Jaune and Amber solidified their bond and the two were back on the road, with Vale and Beacon as their goal.

It was early in the afternoon, so Jaune and Amber decided to give Valkyrie some reprieve by having her trot along, with Jaune walking beside the horse to not weigh her down.

Jaune was Spinning one of Amber's steel balls in his left hand as they walked down the dirt road, flanked by forest.

"Why am I doing this again?" Jaune asked.

"You gotta master the basics of the Spin before you can learn anything else," Amber replied, "Just so happens that the basics is just Spinning it while doing other things. The Spin relies on focus, you have to be able to focus on whatever you need to while having some focus on the Spin. Otherwise it'd be useless in a fight."

Jaune nodded, it did make sense to him. The continuous Spinning of the steel ball indicated that he was doing a good job so far on splitting his focus. Sure it was just keeping up with a slow horse, but he's gotta take it slow.

"Will the next lesson be about throwing it like you do?" Jaune asked.

"The next lesson will come soon… I just gotta think it up." Amber admitted a little bashfully. After all, she doesn't have any experience teaching.

Jaune shrugged. But he had a free hand he activated his stand. His fingernails immediately began to Spin.

Amber raised an eyebrow, "Trying to figure out what your stand does?"

"Yeah. I don't know how to explain it, but I have this gut feeling that my nails don't just Spin on my fingers. Is that weird?" Jaune asked.

"Stands in general are very weird. But for a stand user it's not a weird feeling. I felt something similar when the eyeball of [Scan] appeared in my steel ball. Took me a bit to realize that I had to consciously visualize through it in order to actually use it. Then took some more time to figure out the x-ray vision and even longer to realize that it could stay in place in the air when I throw it." Amber summarized.

Jaune looked at his Spinning nails. 'How the hell could these things be useful?' He thought. 'They do look kinda sharp.'

He chopped through the air like his arm was a sword, the buzzing of his nails flittered through the air.

Jaune got an idea. "Hold on a sec." He told Amber after he gave her steel ball back.

Amber stopped Valkyrie and looked as Jaune walked over to a tall tree, his nails still Spinning. He sliced at the tree with his nails, thinking it'd leave a light gash in the bark.

Imagine Jaune's surprise when his hand cleaved through the whole tree with a tearing sound as it fell away from the road.

"HOLY SHIT!" The two humans yelled.

Jaune looked at his Spinning nails before disengaging his stand.

"Dude, your stand's like a chainsaw!" Amber exclaimed.

Jaune grinned, but it was immediately dashed when he heard someone yell "HELP!"

The boy ran into the woods and saw a young man under the collapsed tree. His face was thuggish with dark eyes, shaved brown hair and tanned skin on his hands and head as he wore a grey jumpsuit that had the sleeves rolled up.

"Get this fucking tree off me!" The young man screamed.

"I got you." Jaune said as he got next to him and started to lift the tree off the young man, who slipped out from underneath.

"Thanks," The young man said as he picked himself up. "Did you knock down the tree?"  
"Yeah, sorry about that." Jaune apologized.

The young man shook his head, "Least you had the decency to help me out. Name's Pewter." He held out his hand for Jaune to shake, but Jaune got an odd feeling. He ignored it and shook his hand and turned back to the road.

"Nice to meet you." Jaune said curtly as he walked back towards Amber.

Jaune looked to see Amber was sizing up Pewter with a sharp look in her eyes.

"Long way from home, aren't you? Not much on this road for miles." Amber said as Jaune got to her side.

Pewter smiled and took some steps towards the two. "I like long walks in the woods."

Jaune immediately understood what the feeling was from earlier, it was that eerie feeling people get when something's not right. He also picked up on Amber's subtext: this random guy shouldn't be out this far in the middle of the woods or even close enough get hit by the one tree Jaune cut down.

Jaune jumped onto the saddle and wrapped his arms around Amber. "We should go." He whispered.

The Spin master agreed. She looked to Pewter, "Sorry buddy, but we gotta get going."

"Mind if I come with? I got my horse nearby. How about we head to my family's camp. You helped me out, the least we could do is make you something to eat." Pewter pushed as he was about thirty feet from the horse.

The thought that there were more people in the woods sent a chill down Jaune and Amber's spines. "Hold on tight." She whispered to Jaune before she whipped the reins and Valkyrie shot off before Pewter could get closer.

The young man glared from a distance. "Y'all won't be able to run for long…"

As the two got a good amount of distance from the stranger on the road, they sighed. "That could've gone bad." Amber said.

Jaune nodded. "Just gotta keep an eye out." He said as he wiped the sweat from his brow. But he noticed something weird on his hand as he did so.

"Is that blood?" Jaune said as he looked at his hand.

Amber grabbed his hand and examined it. "No cuts. Must've been the other guy's."

She provided a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped it away. But then Amber looked at her elbow. "Gross! You got some on me!" She then vigorously scrubbed her elbow with the same handkerchief.

When she felt good about the cleanup, she tossed it into one of her saddlebags.

Jaune thought about it before saying "He wasn't bleeding, even after the tree fell on him. And he'd be bleeding from his torso if anything. He didn't touch anything… he just wanted to shake my hand."

Amber's eyes widened as she made Valkyrie slow down and stop. "We fell for it."

"Fell for what?" Jaune asked.

"Their trap." Amber realized.

"A trap? How?! We're far away from the guy!" Jaune exclaimed.

"Get off my horse, Jauney. We need to look you over for any damage or darts or anything!" Amber said with a hint of panic.

Jaune did as she asked but felt something bonk his head as he touched the ground. "Ow!"

Amber and Jaune's eyes widened as her steel ball, still in the holster hanging by her waist, was attached to Jaune's head like a magnet.

Jaune grabbed the ball and tried to pull it from his head, but all he managed to do was get his hand under it as he pulled it a few inches from his head before the magnetic force increased. Now Jaune's hand was trapped between his forehead and the steel ball. And he could feel the pressure begin to increase.

"Amber, the hell is going on?" Jaune asked.

Amber then grabbed her steel ball and began to pull on it, but the magnetic force made it feel like she was trying to rip a door off its hinges.

Jaune then tried to pull away to help Amber, but all that did was shake her while she was still seated on Valkyrie's saddle.

"Jauney, I'm gonna fall if you keep that up." She warned.

The panic in Jaune's hand made him ignore it as he felt the felt the steel ball burrowing into it more and more as time progressed.

"Jaune! Cut it ou-" Amber fell off her horse and onto Jaune, her hand still clasped around the steel ball.

"Ouch! Son of a bitch" Amber exclaimed. She tried to pull her hand off the steel ball, but found it stuck to the steel ball.

She then felt a sharp pain in her side and her waist. She was shocked to see her other steel ball and her belt buckle was being attracted to her body, like it was trying to burrow inside of her.

Jaune yelled in pain as she saw his new metal armor tightening around his chest. His sheathed sword was being attracted into his leg too, thankfully the blade wasn't out, otherwise the boy might be missing a limb.

"We're like magnets!" Amber figured out.

"That guy's blood must've done this to us." Jaune realized.

"It really was a trap!" Amber tried to stand up, but then she saw her legs and Jaune's were attracted to each other. She felt the force of the pull as she felt her whole body was being pulled to Jaune's and vice versa.

The two then couldn't resist the magnetic force anymore, their bodies colliding and they crumpled together.

Jaune struggled to pull away from Amber, but the lady knew it was useless.

The thundering of hooves alerted the two. Amber turned to Valkyrie and said, "Get out of here girl!"

The horse hesitated for a second, then ran off for safety.

Three horses galloped towards the pair, stopping about twenty feet from them.

Amber and Jaune saw three people sitting upon the horses, recognizing one of them as Pewter on the left and rationalizing that the other two were the family he mentioned from earlier. Pewter now had a one-handed axe hanging by his waist. The handle was metal, but the blade was a dark stone.

On the right was a young woman, probably Pewter's sister. She had long and wild brown hair and the same dark eyes as Pewter as she was clad in an unzipped light green jumpsuit with a white tank top underneath. She had holsters for a knife around each of her ankles. Like her brother, her weapons had stone blades and metal handles.

In the middle was a middle-aged man with neatly combed salt and pepper hair and dark eyes like the other two, he was probably their father. We was clad in a black jumpsuit, zipped up with the sleeves ripped off. He had a large Warhammer strapped to his back, but this one was entirely made of the dark stone seen in the other's weapons.

"Seems like you two really fell for my boy's stupid trap." The man said with a hearty laugh.

The young woman humored him, "Hell yeah, daddy. What now?"

"How about we introduce ourselves to the fall maiden first." He replied, but the fact he knew who Amber was informed the two protagonists that they were here to kill her.

"Y'all met my son Pewter." The man gestured to him, who waved with a grin, "This peach here is my daughter, Lime." The girl licked her lips at the pair, much like a hungry predator when it catches it prey, "My name is Graphite, Graphite Boom. And you just fell into the [Tomb of the Boom]."

Jaune and Amber said nothing as they tried to think of anything to get themselves out of this horrible situation.

But their chances didn't look good in the slightest.

_To be continued._

AN: Stand battle time! I originally wanted the whole thing to be one chapter, but it's been forever since I updated it. Next chapter will the whole battle.

As a heads up, I will not be making original stands as I'm nowhere near as creative as Araki. That man scares me with how many characters and stands he's made, all being so unique and cool-looking. Especially with Jojolion, there's absolutely no reason that part 8 should be as insane and original coming out of a 30 year-old series.

I'd also like to address a review about Jaune and Amber getting their stands not working for their specific stands like in the manga. I'm pulling whatever tricks I can to make it work in my head. There is no holy corpse, as it's only in the SBR universe, but the idea of the Devil's Palm works for me because even in the manga you just had to survive it and alternate world Johnny's had Tusk, so he probably survived whatever that in it and came out with Tusk, Holy Corpse not needed. I will admit that I really downplayed it, but I wanted Jaune to get his stand pretty fast. As for Amber, [Scan] being a holy corpse stand had the same issue, but I felt it'd be kinda funny for my interpretation of Amber to be flippant with certain details of her life, with her downplaying how the situation went like it was nothing she wasn't used to.

I should've put this in chapter one, but here's my main warning going forward: I'll break and change some stand rules as needed to make them work for my story. I won't rewrite stands, but I'll mold them to be better fits for the characters I have chosen.

Until next time, don't be afraid to give me suggestions or ideas for future chapters. While I do have a good portion of everything figured out, I want this to be a long story that'll follow events through vol. 7 or 8 before I get to the final arcs.


	4. Tusk Part 2

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure – Wayward Son

Chapter 4: Tusk Part 2

(The Road to Vale)

"[Tomb of the Boom]." Amber muttered.

She was magnetized to Jaune. A steel ball was burrowing itself into her side, her belt buckle pulled into her waist and her right hand was stuck to her other steel ball. Said steel ball was trying to burrow through Jaune's hand as it was stuck in-between the steel ball and his forehead, while his sheathed sword was attached to his leg.

The two were crumpled together in a pile on the dirt road surrounded by forest.

Twenty feet away on horseback were their enemies, The Booms: Graphite, Pewter and Lime.

The Booms dismounted from their horses and approached the duo without drawing their weapons.

As they approached, the magnetic force increased, Jaune and Amber felt their bones stress against the pressure. Amber was sure that her blood was starting to magnetize to Jaune and vice versa.

But the steel ball cracked one of Jaune's knuckles, causing him to scream in pain.

The Booms laughed and so Amber gambled. "Fucking cowards!"

The three stopped dead in their tracks, ten feet away.

"Did I hear you right, missy?" Graphite asked with a glare.

"You're a bunch of worthless fucking cowards." Amber stated.

"Shut yer trap!" Pewter exclaimed as he drew his axe from its holster on his waist.

His father grabbed his arm, "Boy… put that down."

Pewter glared at his father, before throwing the axe, it sliced Jaune's earlobe before embedding itself into a nearby tree.

Jaune didn't feel that smaller wound over his broken knuckle, which his aura was trying to repair.

"You ambushed us with a dirty trick. Where's the honor in that?" Amber said, hoping to strike a nerve.

"Honor? Bitch, we're more honorable than you. You ran off after my brother offered you dinner!" Lime exclaimed.

"That was just rude of y'all." Graphite said. "It's a custom of ours to offer one last meal to the people we kill. A family tradition."

Amber chuckled, a feat in and of itself considering the steel ball in her side, "Aww, you don't eat them? Figured a buncha hicks like yourself would've been into that shit."

Graphite growled, "We ain't cannibals. We're professionals."

"Yeah right. If you're professionals, why just send out the boy? Why don't you take me on yourself!" Amber taunted.

Graphite considered taking the young woman on in combat; his children turned to him. "Don't do it, Dad." "Bad idea, Daddy."

He looked to Jaune and got a new thought.

"What's yer name, son?" Graphite asked.

"J-j…" Jaune could barely speak for himself because of the pain.

"JoJo. His name is JoJo." Amber said, trying to cover for Jaune. If these guys really worked for the people trying to kill her, the last thing they needed to know was Jaune's name.

Graphite turned to his son. "Tone down your stand."

Pewter wanted to argue with his father but relented after Graphite raised his hand at the young man.

Jaune and Amber felt the magnetic pull lessen upon the both of them. While they couldn't separate from each other, they could breathe better. Amber was even able to pull the steel ball away from Jaune's forehead, allowing his aura to finally repair the broken knuckle.

Graphite squatted next to Jaune and looked him dead in the eye. "Let's make a wager. If you can beat my kids, I'll let the two of you go scot-free."

Jaune took a deep breath. "I'm guessing you'll kill us on the spot if I lose."

"Bingo, bucko." Graphite smiled.

Amber gripped her steel ball and Spun it. She tried to shove it into the man's throat, but he raised his hand and the steel ball immediately stopped dead in the air, no matter how much Amber tried to push or pull on it.

"That's why I was talking to the boy and not you. He has manners, like not speaking unless spoken to. You're unruly. And rude." Graphite said.

His body glowed with a purple aura before his stand appeared beside him. It looked like a little, purple alien with multiple leg and its tongue sticking out like an anteater.

His children also glowed with a purple aura and their stands appeared beside them. They looked similar to Graphite's, with only different number of fingers and legs along with the shape of the lips.

"My family's stand is [Tomb of the Boom]. We like to kill people with the beautiful force of magnetism." Graphite said with pride.

He used said force of magnetism to shoot the steel ball off into Amber's chest, separating her from Jaune as she flew into the tree where Pewter tossed his axe.

Amber was kept suspended by the steel ball that burrowed into her chest. Once again, she found it hard to breathe.

"Amber!" Jaune called out to his friend.

She gritted her teeth as she reached for her other steel ball, but it floated out of her holster and hovered in front of her neck.

"One wrong move and SNAP!" Graphite warned. "Your ribs will break first, piercing your heart and lungs, then the other one will go right through your neck."

Graphite approached her tree, but Jaune unsheathed Crocea Mors, gripped it tight with both hands and stepped in-between them. While the sword was in a shaky grip, Graphite honestly couldn't tell if it was because Jaune was terrified or high on adrenaline.

"I accept your challenge." Jaune said with a small fire in his eyes. "You better honor your end of the deal."

He laughed and held up his hands as he walked backwards to the horses.

"You got guts, let's see my kids spill them." Graphite said. "Pewter, you're up."

Pewter smiled and outstretched his right hand. Jaune immediately remembered his axe was behind him and beside Amber on the tree, so he executed a dodge roll like Amber taught him the day before, landing in a position that allowed him to immediately stand back up.

The axe zipped right into Pewter's hand, he pulled it close and lined it with his heart.

"And don't you worry, JoJo, I'll honor my word and so will my kids." Graphite stated.

Pewter charged at Jaune, who grabbed and deployed his shield with his left hand in time to deflect the blow. Amber taught him that blocking a blow head-on was not viable in every confrontation. Deflecting was a good way to make an opening to capitalize upon.

So Jaune took a chance and sliced at the young man, but Graphite also deflected the blow.

Jaune could feel his weapons begin to draw themselves to his body again. It wasn't as strong, but he could feel the force slowly increase. His attacks became sloppier and his defense was harder to maintain as he had to use more energy to keep up as the two went blow for blow. He had two options: finish the fight fast or discard his weapons entirely.

The first idea sounded great but was unlikely.

The second was horrible but may be the one Jaune would have to follow through with.

"Footwork!" Amber yelled from the tree. She didn't want the last few days of on and off training to be worth nothing. One of Jaune's weaknesses was his forgetting to readjust his footwork.

Jaune adjusted his footing and bashed his shield, where Pewter responded with an overhead swing that lead to a clash where the two were struggling to make their attack overcome the other. If Jaune didn't readjust his footing, he would've been easily toppled.

"Get him, son!" Graphite cheered, with Lime joining in from the sidelines.

"He's open!" Amber yelled.

Jaune immediately understood what Amber meant, he used his sword and stabbed toward Pewter.

The enemy relented and jumped backwards to avoid the stab.

"Whoa!" Jaune shifted his footwork again to prevent himself from falling over.

Pewter charged at Jaune with yell and held his axe in an underhanded grip. He then sliced upwards at Jaune, who reflexively tried to deflect with his sword, but Graphite's axe hooked on to Crocea Mors' cross guard.

"Gotcha, bitch." Pewter then ripped Crocea Mors from Jaune's grip, where it flew through the air and imbedded itself to the cross guard into a nearby tree at about head-level.

'Crap.' Jaune and Amber thought simultaneously.

With his eyes on his sword, Jaune didn't have enough time to react to Pewter slugging him in the jaw with his free hand. This made Jaune spin a bit, enough to give Pewter an opening to slice at Jaune's chest, but his chest plate took the brunt of the blow, gaining a diagonal gash in the center.

"Too close." Jaune took this moment to uppercut Pewter's axe-wielding right hand with his shield, sending the weapon flying into the air.

Amber realized that Jaune needed guidance. He was competent but would make the mistake of not using every advantage he could take. She called out to him, "Lesson one: do what you have to do to survive!"

Like Jaune, Pewter made the mistake of locking his eyes on his own weapon. The knight-to-be made a split-second decision to abuse the defense his large pool of aura gave him and bashed his forehead right into Pewter's nose, breaking it.

"PEW!" Lime called out. Their father looked disappointed.

Pewter stumbled backwards as blood spewed from his nose. "AAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH!" He screamed as he activated his stand to its full power. His axe immediately flew back into his hand as Jaune's shield stuck to his chest plate, trapping his left arm in an awkward position as the chest plate tightened around him.

The damn thing felt like a vice grip, but Jaune could still breathe fine. But he figured he'd have a minute until breathing would be hard.

Amber was unaffected as she was under the control of Graphite's magnetic field, but she wanted nothing more than to change places with Jaune.

Her taunting earlier was meant to make Graphite fight her; she wanted the under-trained Jaune to be her support.

The fact he held his ground so far made Amber reevaluate her teaching, which she thought was subpar, if she was going to be honest with herself.

Maybe her teaching style does stink and Jaune just has enough potential to overcome that hurdle.

In any case, her student could be doing better.

As Amber worried, Jaune heard a humming to his left, he turned his head to see his sword was vibrating in the tree it was imbedded in. It was being attracted to him and would pull itself out soon.

He got a horrible idea of what to do.

Jaune locked his eyes on Pewter, he then activated his stand on his free right hand. The buzzing of the Spinning nails made Jaune grin as he was surrounded in a pink aura.

Graphite quirked an eyebrow, "That a stand?"

Neither Jaune nor Amber replied as Pewter charged with an overhead swing, screaming like a madman with his blood caking his face with his stand's purple aura enveloping him.

Jaune felt fear. 'I can't do this.' Suddenly echoed through his mind. He almost dispelled his stand in order to run away.

"Lesson two: Keep your head clear in a fight!" Amber told him, worried that Jaune would lose whatever lead he gained for himself. If he wavered now, then he would be killed.

Jaune took a deep breath and felt time slow down. He had one chance to pull off his plan and he waited the right moment to act.

Pewter jumped to close the distance to Jaune. He swung his axe downwards and Jaune saw his chance.

Jaune juked right, bringing his magnetized shield right into the path of the axe. When it connected, Jaune turned his hand and executed an underhanded slice.

The forest went quiet as the audience was confused. "The hell was that?" Lime asked. Graphite had no answer, but felt a pit grow in his stomach.

Amber's eyes scanned the battlefield and immediately understood her student's plan. 'If he pulls this off, I owe him a drink when we get to Vale.' She thought.

"I'm sorry." Jaune said, feeling a bit of disgust within himself.

Pewter was confused. He was pushing his axe's blade into the boy's shield, but it felt like all the power was drained from his arm. He felt something warm around his hand.

He didn't feel any pain, so what did this JoJo fellow do?

He shook his head and pulled his arm back to swing his axe again, but his axe fell to the ground.

Lime screamed for her brother out of horror.

"Your hand!" Graphite yelled in shock.

"What?" Pewter asked, feeling lightheaded all of a sudden. He pulled his arm up to look at it, but his heart stopped when he realized what happened. His vision snapped to his axe lying on the dirt road.

His right hand was still firmly gripped on the handle.

The pain flooded his body all at once as he screamed to the heavens as he held the stump with his only hand as he cranked his stand to full power.

Jaune then quickly executed the second part of his plan as he hooked his arm around Pewter's neck and spun the young man around to face the direction of the buried Crocea Mors. His own armor tightened immediately to the point that he couldn't take another breath and was grateful for the placement of his shield as Pewter's axe flew and attached itself to the shield.

But Jaune didn't worry, for the increased magnetism towards his body also attracted Crocea Mors and Pewter was too blinded with pain to piece together Jaune's plan.

The sword suddenly flew from the tree towards Jaune, with Pewter's head in the path of the pommel.

"CRACK!" Rang out as the pommel bashed into Pewter's head, knocking him out.

Jaune suddenly felt his armor loosen up, allowing Jaune to breathe again. At the same time, Pewter's axe fell to the ground and Jaune could pull his shield arm away from his body.

He let go of Pewter, who's body slumped to the ground. But his aura began to repair the damage to his nose and stump of an arm.

Jaune picked up his sword and stood up, shakily. He felt that half his aura was drained, being used to repair the bruising to his bones from Pewter's stand and also to re-energize himself. He could keep fighting strong against Lime, but he had a feeling that Graphite would be a problem.

He wanted to barf his brains out when he saw Graphite's hand in the dirt, he quickly turned away. He felt some shame for the action, but then he focused on the fact that Pewter was trying to kill him and probably killed many others with his family.

He looked to Amber, whose face was soft and gave him a look that told him 'That was horrific, but I don't fault you for it'.

He then looked to the remaining two Booms. Lime looked numb, seeing her brother be brutalized as he was. Graphite, however, had a grim look on his face.

Graphite snapped one of his fingers and a moment later came another "SNAP!" And Amber screamed in pain as the steel ball pinned against her chest snapped one of her ribs.

"Bastard!" Jaune yelled as he pointed Crocea Mors at the pair.

"You crippled my boy… be grateful I'm honoring our agreement and don't kill her right here and now." Graphite said.

Jaune glared. He grabbed Pewter's unconscious body and dragged him from the road and dropped him in the grass of the surrounding forest.

"Lime… make me proud. Avenge your brother." Graphite ordered his daughter.

She narrowed her eyes at Jaune, who stepped back onto the dirt road and stood ready to fight against her.

Her knives flew from the holsters around her ankles and into her hands.

She threw one of her knives at Jaune, who blocked it head-on with his shield. The knife imbedded itself into the shield, which was what Lime wanted as she used her stand's control of magnetism to pull down on Jaune's shield, knocking him off his balance as she charged with the other knife in a righthanded reverse-grip.

Jaune missed a sword-slice that he meant to use to deflect Lime's incoming slice, but it made him more unbalanced and coupled with Lime's attack nicking him in the pauldron, he fell over and crashed into the ground.

With a flick of her hand, Jaune's shield went flying from his grip. 'She's controlling only her knives!' He realized.

Her version of [Tomb of the Boom] may be less powerful than her brother's, but her speed and viciousness made up for it.

She pounced towards Jaune, who was lying on his back with his left hand bare against the ground and his right hand gripping Crocea Mors.

"Die!" She screamed as she was mid-air, with the knife poised to stab right into the gash Pewter left in his armor, Jaune activated his stand out of instinct.

The nails on his left hand immediately Spun up.

And Lime ended up stabbing dirt.

She looked to her right to see Jaune being pulled along the ground by his Spinning nails like wheels on a car.

'Oh lords!' Jaune proclaimed as he felt sick from the sudden burst of speed. He stopped his nails' Spin right before he crashed his head into a tree.

He was in the middle boundary of the makeshift arena between Graphite and Lime. Besides Graphite were the horses he and his children rod upon. But Jaune now noticed that only the horse Lime rode upon had saddlebags.

"Lime, honey… stop messing around and end it." Graphite ordered.

Lime nodded and summoned her version of [Tomb of the Boom].

The saddlebags on her horse rumbled before a stream of black sand flowed out of them and flew right at Jaune.

He couldn't dodge as the black sand washed upon him like a wave, sending his sword flying in the crash.

"How do you like my iron sand? It's my specialty." Lime gleefully said.

Jaune pulled his head and his left hand out before the iron sand condensed. It felt like Jaune was stuck in a rock.

"Aww, I was hoping to suffocate you." Lime said with a disappointed tone before a bright grin lit up her face, "That means I can gouge out your eyes and force-feed 'em to you."

The idea made Jaune turn green.

Lime was about thirty feet away and was slowly walking to him with a sadistic grin and both knives in her hands like she was ready to clear out an all-you-can-eat buffet.

'Maybe this bitch is a cannibal.' Amber thought. She wasn't too worried for Jaune considering how well he held himself against Pewter with the little training she gave him. The boy was smart, maybe a bit lucky, so she had faith he'd pull himself out of the situation.

Jaune reactivated his stand, but the pseudo-chainsaw wasn't going to cut him out of the iron sand. His left hand was deep in the sand prison where it kept shifting, negating any chance he had at cutting himself out. His right hand was buried at the wrist, even if he could move it around more it'd be useless as proven by his left.

All Jaune could do was point and maybe talk his way out of the situation.

"M-Maybe you could not go for my eyes?" Jaune offered.

Lime stopped and thought about. "Fair enough… I'll cut out your tongue first! Then you won't be able to argue."

"No! I like my tongue where it is! I like where every part of me is attached!" Jaune protested.

Lime narrowed her eyes out of annoyance and threw one of her knives, stabbing right through the palm of Jaune's exposed right hand.

"AHHHHH!" He screamed.

Amber took this chance where Graphite was too distracted by the fight to try to escape. 'I gotta be able to do something.' The steel ball floating in front of her neck was about a few inches away, but the lack of contact made it not a concern. She only had to worry about the steel ball buried into her chest.

Her rib was still broken, but her aura took off some of the pain.

She gripped it and tried to Spin it, but it wouldn't budge. She could feel the Spin's energy, but [Tomb of the Boom]'s magnetism refused to allow the ball to Spin.

Amber tapped into her Fall Maiden aura and tried again with the increased strength and connection to nature it provided, but Amber could only get the thing to turn about thirty degrees. But she then tried to do the same to the other one that floated in front of her neck.

It wanted to Spin, the energy was inside of both steel balls. If only Graphite' [Tomb of the Boom] relented, then she would have control over her steel balls.

She dropped her hand down and dispelled her Fall Maiden aura as Graphite turned back to her. He hadn't a clue about what she was attempting.

'I need Jauney to make an opening for me, but how?' Amber pondered.

Back to the boy with a knife in his palm, the pain made his vision go red. He wasn't thinking straight, and he wanted to survive as Lime gripped her other knife and took aim, ready to throw it.

Acting out of instinct, Jaune called upon his stand with his all of his will.

'I WANT TO LIVE!' He screamed in his mind as the pink aura of his stand surrounded him again as his nails spun faster.

Jaune then felt something new overshadow him as Lime stopped dead in her tracks, looking above Jaune in awe.

He looked up to see a large spirit-like entity, a pink outline of a man or monster with chain-like armor floated above Jaune. But then it began to shrink and condense until it turned into a small pink creature that Jaune found cute. Covered in gold stars with floppy ears, little arms, four dangling appendages that had heart-shaped tips and a gold cone nose that had a line connected to the largest star located on its forehead. It was kinda like Jaune's white beanie with the gold star stitched upon it.

"_Chumimi~in_." It chirped as it floated above Jaune's hand as his nails Spun. It pulled the knife out of Jaune's palm with both hands and tossed it aside, his aura flooded the wound to patch himself up. It then floated above him like a guardian saying 'I will fight for you'.

"My stand." Jaune realized. 'But what was up with the bigger one?' He pondered for a second before re-focusing on the fight at hand as his stand pointed at Lime, who snapped out of her astonishment.

"HAH! Your stand's a fucking midget!" She laughed, her father joining in.

'What tricks do you have up your sleeve, little guy?' Amber asked herself.

Jaune gritted his teeth as his stand crossed its stubby arms in annoyance. 'Let's show them what we're made of!' Jaune thought.

As a part of him, his stand nodded in agreement with his thoughts.

As Lime kept laughing, Jaune's stand adjusted his five fingers to point right at the girl.

Amber suddenly thought of what might happen next and smiled brightly, 'Well… Jaune might not need a gun after all.'

His stand waved its arm above Jaune's nails and then they suddenly shot off his fingertips like bullets.

All five shots hit Lime, who barely had enough time to bring up her aura as a shield. Four shots broke her aura completely and the fifth punch right through her arm.

Her body crumpled to the ground unconscious.

"HELL YEAH!" Amber cheered from the tree.

The iron sand went slack and fell to the ground as Jaune pulled himself up, not even bothering to grab his weapons again. He could feel his fingernails rapidly re-growing. He would never be without a weapon even if he ended up disarmed.

He faced Graphite with the both of them having their stands float by their sides.

"I beat your son and your daughter." Jaune stated, the fire in his eyes burning a bright blue.

"So you have…" Graphite drawled. His face contorted into one of pure rage before the steel ball that floated above Amber zoomed right in front of him as he drew his warhammer with both hands. He swung his arms back and struck the floating steel ball like a baseball. With mass of the solid steel ball and the intense speed it was accelerating towards at a fast rate, Jaune would've lost his head if he hadn't dodge rolled out of the way. The tree behind him exploded into a show of splinter along with the one behind it before the steel ball cratered into the third.

Jaune dug his fingers into the ground and zipped away just as Graphite jumped over to his position and slammed his warhammer right in the spot Jaune was in, making a large crater.

"HOLD STILL YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Graphite screamed as the two entered into this dance of zipping away and making craters.

"WE HAD A DEAL!" Jaune yelled.

"BOY, YOU HAD NO PLACE TO MAKE ANY DEAL!" Graphite screamed as the next strike from his warhammer almost got him. "YOU CRIPPLED MY BOY!" SLAM! "YOU HURT BY BABY GIRL!" SLAM! "YOU THOUGHT I WAS JUST GONNA LET YOU LIVE?! THE BOTH OF YOU WERE DEAD THE SECOND WE LAID EYES UPON YOU!"

"If I'm being honest, yes!" Jaune replied, before zipping away. He aimed his free hand right at Graphite's warhammer and fired two shots. Graphite side-stepped the first one but tried to deflect the second with his warhammer.

The nail bullet made the stone warhammer shatter into a shower of rubble, blinding Graphite with a cloud of sand. "MY EYES!"

"Jackpot!" Amber yelled from her spot on the tree. Jaune turned to Amber with a confused look on his face. "Don't worry JoJo, we got him." Amber said with a smirk. She winked to her apprentice, who then noticed her eye transformed into a crosshair like it does when she uses her stand.

Jaune craned his head in Graphite's direction to see the man was in front of the tree that he whacked Amber's steel ball into.

The steel ball was Spinning from its crater in the tree and it was channeling [Scan], giving Amber the ability to attack stands.

It suddenly flew out of the tree towards Graphite, who tried to summon [Tomb of the Boom] to his aid, but he was too slow as [Scan] impacted the enemy stand in the chest. It sent both stand and user flying, before crashing back into the dirt.

The steel ball holding Amber up dropped to the ground. Amber landed softly, before scooping up her steel ball and having her [Scan] fly back into her other hand. She holstered her steel balls as she approached Graphite, who was coming out of his stupor. He looked up to see Amber glaring down at him with a cold look in her eyes. 'JoJo' walked to her side, with his stand at the ready to fire at him.

For the first time in years, Graphite Boom was afraid for his life. He began to hyperventilate and shake uncontrollably.

"JoJo." Amber said to get her apprentice's attention as she stood in front of the quivering enemy.

"Yeah?" The boy replied.

"Watch what I'm about to do and take some notes," Amber said as she cracked her knuckles and her eyes glowed with the aura of the Fall Maiden, "This is how you make sure a motherfucker stays down without killing them."

Jaune nodded as Graphite screamed "HAVE MERCY!"

Amber had a stony look on her face as she said, "Like the mercy your whole family haven't shown me and my friend?" She grabbed his neck and threw the man thirty feet up into the air. "Hell no."

She drew her fists back, which began glowing with the energy of the Fall Maiden and took a deep breath. When Graphite fell back towards Amber her fists began flying.

Over and over she punched, the barrage keeping the man in the air. Her fists were a blur as Amber shouted to the heavens with the rage of an angry god, "ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA!"

The image burned itself into Jaune head as Amber kept her barrage going.

Before Jaune could blink, Amber let out one last "ORA!" before she uppercut Graphite, sending him flying into the heavens and disappearing far from the group.

Groaning came from different side of the road where Pewter and Lime came back from the realm of unconsciousness.

Amber's head snapped to the other members of the Boom family, who were intense pain and utterly confused as their father was gone.

"Daddy's gone to the store kiddos." Amber said as she drew her steel balls and began so Spin them, the fall maiden aura increasing their power to the point that tiny tornados surrounded the steel balls and Amber looked like an angry god. "Y'all better git on his trail before I decide to 'help' you two find him."

"Don't have to tell me twice." Lime immediately ran to her brother and helped him up before quickly jumping onto one of the horses the Booms arrived on. Two ran away in Jaune's struggle against Graphite. Pewter gripped his stump tightly after wrapping his arms around his sister, who whipped the reins of their horse, galloping in the opposite direction Jaune and Amber were traveling originally.

**THE BOOM FAMILY, STAND: [TOMB OF THE BOOM], STATUS: RETIRED!**

The fight was over and the two Spin users had won their first stand battle as a pair.

"Holy shit." Jaune said, his respect for Amber skyrocketing.

Amber smirked and dispelled her Fall Maiden aura and Spin. "And that's how it's fucking done, Jauney-Boy."

Jaune nodded as Amber whistled for Valkyrie, who galloped from her hiding spot in the woods. Jaune took a moment gather his weapons and reattach them to his waist.

The two jumped into the saddle and had Valkyrie walk along the road as the two let their auras patch up their wounds along with giving them a minute to breathe.

The sun was starting to set, but Amber wanted to get far away from the battleground before settling down.

"I'm surprised you didn't kill any of them." Amber said.

"Taking Pewter's hand was more than enough. I didn't want to take his life." Jaune said.

"One of these days, you might not get that choice." Amber said, thinking about the lives she's taken on the road. All of which were in situations where she had no other choice.

"Then why didn't you kill Pewter?" Jaune asked.

"He was already defeated… and I hate killing." Amber then chuckled. "It's ironic… before I became the Fall Maiden, I wanted to be a doctor. Now I'm a wanderer with blood on my hands."

Jaune thought about the image of Amber wearing a lab coat as she tenderly attended to patients. "Maybe you could be one down the road, after we get to Vale."

Amber smiled softly. "One day…"

She decided to change the subject away from her. "Have you thought about a name?"

"A name?" Jaune asked.

"For your stand." Amber said.

Jaune summoned his stand and it floated in front of Amber.

"It's real cute." Amber admitted as she scratched its cheek like a puppy.

"I guess." Jaune said. He looked at his stand for a moment, before thinking of his favorite animal: the elephant.

"[Tusk]." He said.

"[Tusk]?" Amber asked.

"It's my natural weapon, like an elephant's tusks. I can rely on it to defend myself and to fight." Jaune said.

She played with the little stand's arms like a doll. "[Tusk]… I like it."

When the two later set-up camp for the night, they did so without a word. They didn't need to say any as they relaxed by laying on the ground and stared at the stars in the night sky.

'Whatever come next, I know me and Jaune can handle it.' Amber thought to herself.

'We're one step closer to Beacon. I'm one more step to becoming a huntsman and I'm getting stronger on this road we're on.' Jaune looked to his teacher. 'Thank you, Amber. There's still so much to learn. Even though the two of us almost died today, I really rose above and proved myself.'

As Jaune fell asleep, he did so looking towards the future.

_To be continued._


End file.
